Monday, December 05, 2016

Dividers On Division

I really didn't expect the NY Times to remember much of what they said in their shock and awe phase right after the election. Here is a fine example of some first rate spin from Trevor Noah ... the new "Great Eviscerator" who replaced Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show". Only Trevor is a "kinder and gentler" eviscerator.

"The past year has been so polarizing and noxious that even I find myself getting caught up in the extreme grandstanding and vitriol. But with extremes come deadlock and the death of progress. Instead of speaking in measured tones about what unites us, we are screaming at each other about what divides us — which is exactly what authoritarian figures like Mr. Trump want: Divided people are easier to rule. That was, after all, the whole point of apartheid."

Ah, Trump is an authoritarian that is like "apartheid". Hard to beat that for "bringing together". So I wonder if Mr Noah has any idea what "Identity Politics" is? The NY Times helpfully carried an article on it Nov 18th in which this was one of the paragraphs:

We need a post-identity liberalism, and it should draw from the past successes of pre-identity liberalism. Such a liberalism would concentrate on widening its base by appealing to Americans as Americans and emphasizing the issues that affect a vast majority of them. It would speak to the nation as a nation of citizens who are in this together and must help one another. As for narrower issues that are highly charged symbolically and can drive potential allies away, especially those touching on sexuality and religion, such a liberalism would work quietly, sensitively and with a proper sense of scale. (To paraphrase Bernie Sanders, America is sick and tired of hearing about liberals’ damn bathrooms.)

So the folks that have operated using "Identity Politics" for a good long while are LIBERALS ... taking blacks, women, hispanics, gays, transgenders, socialists, "marginally legal" immigrants, wealthy limousine liberals in big cities, environmentalists, muslims, and a couple of other SEPARATE GROUPS, and telling EACH of them "you are better off with us, we will cater to YOUR balkanized interests".

In other words, keeping all those groups divided from each other, but "grouped" by promises to be better than the "other guys", "the irredeemable deploreabiles". Does the fact that Identity Politics is all about dividing, and dividing is what authoritarians do, make "progressives" into authoritarians that are like apartheid? I know the answer to that ... no, of course not. Liberals are always good!

Trump on the other hand said "Make AMERICA great again". America is an idea ... a single entity.

Sadly, given what we’ve seen in this election, Mr. Trump’s victory has only amplified the voices of extremism. It has made their arguments more simplistic and more emotional at a time when they ought to be growing more subtle and more complex. We should give no quarter to intolerance and injustice in this world, but we can be steadfast on the subject of Mr. Trump’s unfitness for office while still reaching out to reason with his supporters.

There we have it. We poor emotional Trump supporters were swayed by extremism and simplistic arguments -- when what was needed was "subtle and complex" -- and mistakenly cast our vote for someone "unfit for office". However, the brilliant folks like Trevor will be oh so happy to explain it to us in their "subtle and complex ways" -- usually beginning with "hey you bunch of deplorable stupid racist bigots, let me tell you what you BETTER believe".

That is how the left intends to "bring us all together". It's a beautiful thing.